WordPress Essential Training shows how to get the most out of the self-hosted version of WordPress and create feature-rich blogs and web sites. Author Morten Rand-Hendriksen explains how to get a web host, set up a domain, and download, configure, and upload WordPress to your newly hosted site. The course then dives fully into the tools in WordPress, demonstrating how to set up your profile and create content to share with your web audience. The course also includes tutorials on everything
from adding images, video, formatting, and links that make posts pop, to installing plug-ins, creating custom themes, and attracting readers with permalinks, social sharing, and more.
Introduction
- Welcome
- What is WordPress?
- Exploring the difference between cloud hosting and self-hosting
- Using your own asset files
- Getting the necessary info from your host
- Downloading WordPress
- Uploading WordPress to your host
- Installing WordPress with the 5-Minute Install
- Installing WordPress manually
- Setting up WordPress
- Logging in to the WordPress Admin area for the first time
- Using the WordPress toolbar
- Testing your WordPress site
- Placing WordPress into its own directory
- Editing your profile
- Creating profile images with Gravatar
- Configuring site settings
- Understanding the difference between posts and pages
- Creating a new post
- Advanced text formatting in a new post
- Creating and managing links
- Adding images
- Adding an image gallery
- Adding images, video, and audio from external sources
- Adding categories, tags, post formats, excerpts, and other elements
- Managing post categories and tags
- Publishing a post
- Creating a basic page
- Organizing page hierarchy
- Using page templates
- Creating a static front page
- Managing media from the Admin panel
- Understanding how WordPress handles media
- Installing plug-ins
- Ten must-have plug-ins for all WordPress sites
- Creating a contact page with a contact form
- Troubleshooting when a plug-in crashes a site
- Installing new themes from the WordPress Themes directory
- Installing new themes from the Internet
- Configuring themes
- Best practices for working with themes
- Customizing WordPress for smartphones and tablets
- Accessing the wp-content folder
- Manually installing themes and plug-ins
- What to do when your site crashes
- Exploring theme options
- Setting a custom background
- Setting custom header images
- Using the Showcase page template
- Customizing the Showcase widgets
- Using post formats
- Using widgets
- Using Jetpack widgets
- Creating custom widgets using the Text Widget
- Creating custom menus
- Managing site users
- Managing comments
- Using Disqus to handle comments and avoid spam
- Importing and exporting content from WordPress
- Backing up a WordPress site
- Restoring a site from a crash
- Keeping WordPress up to date
- Creating user-friendly permalinks
- Setting up WordPress for search engine indexing and social sharing
- Enabling easy sharing through AddThis
- Best practices for writing content to get more readers
- WordPress sites are not just plain old blogs
- Creating child themes with WordPress
- Creating portfolio sites with WordPress
